Since 2014, Beautiful Together has been focused on supporting children waiting for families through a variety of tangible projects in the United States and Africa.
Our goal has always been to improve the lives of children growing up in orphanages, group homes and the foster care system. Working in Ethiopia, our efforts naturally expanded to include those children living in extreme poverty and underserved communities.
Over the course of six years, we launched and completed over 20 projects, ranging from renovating bathrooms in an inner-city orphanage in Addis Ababa to building a feeding kitchen for a grassroots aid organization in Ethiopia to our disaster relief center project in Korah to lighting the classrooms at an orphanage to photographing a series of portrait galleries for Kidane Mehret Orphanage to our Safe Showers project for homeless youth aging out of foster care in North Carolina.
Along the way, we repeatedly witnessed the incredible therapeutic connection that children make with animals. Pet therapy was not purposefully a part of our efforts, but the benefits seemed to naturally make a positive difference regardless.
It turns out that research backs up what we'd observed and what many pet owners already know: children connect with animals for comfort, reassurance and emotional support, especially when experiencing fear, loneliness, sadness or stress.
The Beautiful Together Animal Sanctuary was created in 2020 with the goal of building a powerful connection between these two meaningful efforts. As a safe and nurturing environment for animals in need of refuge, our mission is to love, care for and provide a home for abused, abandoned and neglected animals so they can one day find families of their own.
Today we continue our work in Ethiopia while also creating ongoing programs for children living in North Carolina - those living in foster care, group homes and underserved communities. Our efforts include offering academic enrichment connected to “pet therapy” sessions: bottle feeding kittens, socializing puppies, brushing horses – and so much more.
